Good morning. It’s Saturday! Let’s basketball.

Self-Portrait With Portrait of Paul Gaugin; Emile Bernard; 1888

On Friday, the Hawks broke up their backcourt by sending Dejounte Murray to the Pelicans for Dyson Daniels, Larry Nance Jr., E.J. Liddell, the Lakers’ 2025 first round pick and the worse of the Pels and Bucks’ 2027 firsts.

Nance is a useful veteran — an 8th-man, or so. Daniels is an interesting young player. That Lakers pick could be really valuable, and future firsts are almost always dice rolls. That feels like a pretty good package for Murray, who struggled to mesh with Trae Young in two years in Atlanta after being jettisoned in San Antonio’s youth movement. Murray’s the best player in the trade by a longshot, and probably the single best asset. I think Atlanta, though, got plenty good value.

But because the two best assets Atlanta gets back are the Lakers’ pick and Daniels, who is just 21, I would say that neither of those assets are prepared to seriously help the Hawks move to the upper half of the East next season. That’s what is so confusing about this team right now. Two years ago they swung picks to land Murray in hopes of keeping their weird one-time Eastern Conference Finalist near the top of the conference. They slipped further away from the Celtics, Knicks and Bucks. They were leapt by the Cavaliers and Magic. The gambit failed miserably.

But instead of flipping to a new gambit by trading Murray or Young for another high-end player, it’s as if they are resetting, having won the No. 1 pick and choosing a project player in Zaccharie Risacher and now trading Murray for future help.

The Hawks’ run to the 2021 East finals was not an indiciation of sustainable success, and by trading for Murray and then trading Murray, Atlanta’s front office seems to understand that. There is a sobriety about how the Hawks are conducting their business. They are not acting as though they are close to winning. If they had, they might have traded Murray for Brandon Ingram (the next domino in New Orleans), or perhaps trading the No. 1 pick or taken a more ready option like Stephon Castle.

So why am I confused? ...